Hardware Heartache

It has NOT been my weekend...

Apart from feeling physically lousy from hayfever, and mind numbingly bored from revision, all my tech stuff has been going to pieces recently.

My iPod was crapping out on me all over the places yesterday evening. I couldn't establish a connection at all, although it turned out that the wireless router wasn't working, so I reset that. Then Twitterrific stopped working, which sucked, so I deleted it and reinstalled it, and it kept telling me I was entering it wrong... *breath in* Then I uninstalled it again, and went to reinstall it, and I saw it had caught something called the Twitpocalypse bug, which I assumed was bad, so I got annoyed and put my iPod away.

Today, perusing the Interweb, I found this article on engadget, rumouring the "new" Xbox, with Natal being the corner stone of its tech. I was in response to an article from 1UP, who seemed pretty damn confident, despite not actually citing any sources. This gives me mixed views. As is probably clear now, I am in the (long, drawn-out) process of buying an Xbox 360, and I don't want it to become last generation a year after I get it. Recently, I read somewhere that Xbox was going for a 10-year life cycle, which is neat, but it would really annoy me if it did become slightly outdated... Some how, I think this isn't the case. It doesn't seem like Microsoft's style...

Wii HD may be a reality in 2010, according to this pre-E3 news article on Gamespot. Again, mixed feelings. It links into a What They Play article from last year, which suggests Wii HD is a brand new console. That'd really piss me off. I've had a Wii from the very start... I'd prefer it if the Wii HD was some kind of add-on to the existing console... I don't see Nintendo killing off their golden goose though. According to the Gamespot article, there won't be any new consoles till around 2013. Works for me.

But the biggest annoyance for me was finally learning about what the iPhone 3GS was/is. I don't have an iPhone and I particularly wan one. I don't understand what tethering is. I do, however, have an iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without a phone and a camera. And mobile internet. This latest development means something quite important. Because this new iPhone has a better processor (insert long string of numbers and letters as appropriate) it means it can handle better games, in terms of visuals and gameplay. I'm really tired of the iPod Touch playing second fiddle to the iPhone. Okay so it's not as good, I get that. But Apple need to give it some love. The new software is out on the 17th of June, and I'm probably gonna buy it. Don't know what it will do though. I'll check before hand to see if it's worth it.
If Apple released a new iPod Touch with, for example, a camera and a better processor I might buy it. My iPod Touch has had a pretty good run of it... Meh. I'll play it as it comes.

This is me signing off. I won't be doing a blog on Wednesday, because I have three exams this week, and I'd like to ace them, please. I'm not sure I'll manage one on Saturday either, since I'm at a wedding, but it's worth a try.

This has been the blog post that I've done the most research for. Good for me.

Peace out y'all.

Bioshocker of the year...

Gasp! Surpise! Epic plot twist! And other such sentiments!

Bioshock 2 has been revealed... again. Re-revealed. Whatever, I don't know. Point is, Gamespot revealed some new footage and interviews with the guys from 2K Marin chatting about the game and so on.

And I'm kinda worried for it. I mean it looks okay, and I wanna play it... But... eesh.

I'm interested by the new concept of being a Big Daddy as opposed to the same character as before. There was the section before where you "dressed up" as a Big Daddy, but actually being one... I dunno. Of what I played of Bioshock, I liked the plasmid powers and the weapons, and both of these look to work quite well in the sequel. The pyrokinetic ability is pretty cool, especially combined with gunplay.

But the reason I'm catiously optimistic is that I think that what made Bioshock so atmospheric, bar the tons of sea water (yes I just made a pressure joke, deal with it), was that the Big Daddies were ever present forces, that you didn't feel you had to attack. When you did, you really felt threatened by them, and would run around trying to dodge them, because they were a great strong hulking mass, that had no intelligence, just hatred. But now, you are the Big Daddy... And the only thing you have to be scared of is the "Big Sister"

Which are essentially athletic Big Daddies and who I forsee will result in many gamers swearing a lot at their televisions... But ce la vie, I'm sure it'll be brill =)

In a complete different, could-only-be-vaguely-linked-via-genre, change of subject, I have bought Wolfenstein 3-D on my iPod. And why the hell not? I know little about this game, apart from;

- It's got Nazis
- It's got zombies
- It looks a bit like DOOM
- The guy looks like the guy from DOOM

But yeah I only bought it this morning and I've played it a little... The controls aren't great but it's good for a laugh, and the minimap is handy. More on this next time.

And finally, I've joined Twitter. Hooray for this;